Last week's derailment and collision of two Metro-North trains in Fairfield left dozens injured, tens of thousands inconvenienced and taxpayers footing the bill for millions of dollars in repairs. It also proved just how fragile our rail network is, as this accident severed the crucial Northeast Corridor connecting Boston and Washington.

I think we should all be patient and let the National Transportation Safety Board do its investigation before we jump to conclusions as to the cause of the accident. But based on my 17 years of work on the Connecticut Metro-North Commuter Council, I think I can dispel a few myths that are going around concerning the crash.

The new M-8 rail cars have been operating almost flawlessly for more than two years. They have proven themselves reliable, running five times the distance of our older cars before having even the slightest of problems. They are the first new commuter rail cars in the U.S. built to tougher federal safety standards and did extremely well in surviving the collision.

If fault for the accident lies in the design or operation of the M-8 cars, we'd have had many more accidents by now given their heavy usage. We haven't, so I don't think we can fault the cars, despite the legal threats of some Metro-North unions.

My hunch is the accident will be due to the tracks. Just a hunch, but it is tied to the larger overall problem facing not only the Connecticut Department of Transportation but our entire nation: deferred maintenance.

Connecticut transportation Commissioner James Redeker — a very talented man of the highest professional integrity — has been warning us for years that we have worn out roads, bridges and rails in need of repair or replacement. And the commissioner also claims, correctly, that he doesn't get enough money from the General Assembly to do what's needed. Metro-North President Howard Permut has said the same thing, pretty gutsy for a state vendor, which is what Metro-North is.

It took the collapse of the Mianus River Bridge 30 years ago to finally get attention paid to the under-investment by the state in bridge inspections and repairs. And to this day, 35 percent of the department of transportation's annual budget pays off bonds issued after that tragedy to get the deferred bridge and road maintenance back up to speed.

So, in a state that seems to lurch from crisis to crisis before things change, I predict we'll end up asking our grandchildren to pay off the bonds we will now issue for repair work to get our rail infrastructure back up to "a state of good repair."

Investing in mass transit can be sexy. Just look at our M-8 cars. Every commuter I know loves them and sees them as proof that Hartford cares about commuters. But as they look out their train window on the way to work, do passengers have any sense of how old the rails or overhead catenary (power lines) are?

Amtrak owns, operates and maintains the entire Northeast Corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston … except for the section in Connecticut from the New York state line to New Haven. That track is owned by Connecticut and maintained for us by Metro-North. Connecticut pays 65 percent of the cost; the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (parent to Metro-North) pays 35 percent. Amtrak and the federal government kick in a little money, but clearly not enough.

Ride Amtrak in Rhode Island or New Jersey and your Acela train will hurtle along at 140 mph. In Connecticut, America's fastest train runs no faster than Metro-North, about 70 mph. Our roadbed, bridges and signal system can't support higher speeds.

It's probably a good thing Connecticut owns this right-of-way, giving us the authority to prioritize our commuter trains (carrying 1,000 passengers apiece) over Acelas (carrying 300). But that ownership comes at a high cost, which we have not been paying: spending on non-sexy things such as replacing tracks and ties.

If we want to run a safe, reliable railroad, we must pay to maintain it. Perhaps the biggest lesson of last week's accident is to re-prioritize our spending on infrastructure. Not sexy, but very important.

Jim Cameron is chairman of the CT Metro-North Rail Commuter Council and has been a commuter on Metro-North for 23 years from Darien.

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